The Age of Concord

Religion

The Faiths:

The Circle: the pantheon of nine mostly good-aligned gods worshiped together to varying degrees across most human civilizations of Valgard. A variant that adds three sanctified heroes of old, The Holy Church of The Ascendancy, is the official state religion of Avathar. Many of the gods of the pantheon are alsoworshiped by demihumans like dwarves and elves as well, though often by different names and usually venerated on an individual basis, rather than as an organized pantheon.

The Hallowed Heart: Followers of the Hallowed Heart bow to the spirits of the wild, the ancient primal forces of the land itself, or rivers and mountains and trees, even of departed ancestors. There are typically no churches or temples to the Heart of the World; the deep, wild places of Valgard are where followers of the old ways pay their respects.

The Void: Atheistic philosophy that seeks to emulate the quietude of the formless void that existed before the gods and primordials and other great powers came into existence, bringing war and chaos and strife with them. Olybrians overwhelmingly follow this path and are often mistakenly thought to reject the notion of the gods existence; on the contrary they acknowledge the existence of gods but actively choose not to venerate them.

The Exiled: Comprising numerous evil-aligned deities, the Exiled are rarely (if ever) venerated as a true pantheon, but rather individually worshiped by various evil beings across the breadth Valgard. According to the tenets of those who worship the Ascendant Circle, the Exiled are those who, upon the departure or death of the Old Gods, either refused to join the Circle, were barred entry by the other gods, or were banished from the circle at a later time for some transgression against their fellows.

The Harbinger: Those who venerate The Harbinger believe that a surviving deity from before the rise of the new gods will return to reclaim the world and remake everything anew. Worshipers of The Harbinger tend to be obsessive, superstitious, and inclined to paranoia; they constantly seek signs of The Harbinger’s arrival, including cryptic prophecies, bizarre and obscure astrological formulae, and the like. There is no single organized order devoted to The Harbinger but rather many small cults found across Valgard. Most people consider devotees of The Harbinger to be harmless eccentrics at best or dangerous madmen at worst.